Iran has accused the US of kidnapping five of its citizens who were arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. The US has denied the men were diplomats - it says they were linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and were arming Shia fighters in Iraq. Iran's ambassador to Iraq called last week's arrests "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and an insult to the Iraqi people". He demanded the men's release. Hassan Kazimi Qomi denied Iran has been involved in the violence in Iraq. He said the "kidnapped" men were diplomats engaged in legitimate tasks. "These actions are against international conventions which guarantee diplomatic immunity and they are also against the framework of the agreement between Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran," Mr Qomi told the BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad. He denied Iran had any interest in destabilising Iraq, saying the unrest and a flood of refugees could spill over Iran's border. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says federal judges are unqualified to make rulings affecting national security policy, ramping up his criticism of how they handle terrorism cases. In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday, Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences.” The text of the speech, scheduled for delivery at the American Enterprise Institute, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. It outlines, in part, what qualities the Bush administration looks for when selecting candidates for the federal bench. If we are too stupid to vote these Scum out and too brainwashed to realize we have lost any semblance of our Constitution then we deserve what we are allowing to happen to this country. The only thing we have left is our illusion of freedom, and even that is fading fast....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16668110/

Although Israel withdrew from Gaza more than a year ago, its control over the lives of Palestinians there is in some ways even tighter than before, a new report by an Israeli human rights organisation says. In the days after Israeli troops & settlers pulled out of the territory, the then Israeli leader, Ariel Sharon addressed the United Nations. He declared "the end of Israeli control over & responsibility for the Gaza Strip". But a study by Gisha challenges that claim. The organisation says it aims to "protect the fundamental rights of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories by imposing human rights law as a limitation on the behaviour of Israel's military". "Israel continues to control Gaza through an 'invisible hand'," the organisation says, in a detailed, 100-page report. "In contrast to the rhetoric used to describe the disengagement plan, Israel has not relinquished control over Gaza but rather removed some elements of control while tightening other significant controls."...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6270331.stm

Bolivia's central government has said it will not recognise a parallel administration set up by protesters in the central state of Cochabamba. The demonstrators, mainly coca leaf growers who back President Evo Morales, want the local governor, who is aligned with the opposition, to resign. But Mr Morales's administration said their decision to set up an alternative government was illegal. Last week, two people died when the rival groups clashed in Cochabamba. Cochabamba is a city in turmoil, reflecting the divisions in the whole of Bolivia, says the BBC's South America correspondent Daniel Schweimler. Trade unionists, indigenous farmers and coca-leaf growers have been holding almost daily demonstrations to call for the removal of Cochabamba Governor Manfred Reyes Villa. He is one of several state governors calling for more autonomy and greater distance from Mr Morales's radical central government....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6273177.stm

Authorities have refused to grant amnesty to four of the more than 500 suspected militants who have surrendered under an amnesty plan in Chechnya and the surrounding region in southern Russia, officials said Wednesday. Russian authorities announced the amnesty in July as part of efforts to end the insurgency in Chechnya after 12 years of nearly constant conflict, pledging that militants who surrender would not be prosecuted unless they are suspected of particularly grave crimes such as murder, rape or terrorism. Of the more than 500 people who surrendered by Monday's deadline, about 60 have been amnestied, while four are being investigated on suspicion of grave crimes, the chief prosecutor's office in Chechnya said. It said more than 300 already had been checked and would soon be notified of the outcome, while authorities were still reviewing more than 160 others....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2803626

Two former US Border Patrol agents surrendered yesterday to begin prison sentences for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks after he assaulted one of them, dumped nearly 800 pounds of marijuana along the Rio Grande and then fled into Mexico. Ignacio Ramos, 37, and Jose Alonso Compean, 28, said goodbye to their wives and 6 children 3 each as they turned themselves over to US Marshals shortly after 1:30 p.m. at the federal courthouse in El Paso, Texas, to begin 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican who has been at the forefront of efforts to have the prosecution reviewed and the agents re-tried, yesterday criticized the White House for not acting in the case. "This is the worst betrayal of American defenders I have ever seen," Mr. Rohrabacher said of President Bush. "It's shameful this was done by someone who is in the Republican Party. He obviously thinks more about his agreements with Mexico than the lives of American...http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070118-120632-4502r.htm